The Magus

By John Fowles, 656 pages (1965).

This is, perhaps, one of the best books I have ever read for testing your imagination and sense of reality.  I think that is largely the point of the narrative and the style.  The plot involves an Oxford graduate who takes a teaching job on a lonely Greek island.  He is befriended by a semi-hermatic gentleman who leads him through a sort-of living play, with gambit inside gambit making him question which layer of fantasy is in-fact reality--if any of them are at all.

The story and the ideas it brought out--questioning reality and what is real both in terms of facts and emotions--were thought-provoking and page-turning, but I also struggled to carry on at points.  One afternoon I read over 150 pages in a sitting but there were other days where the story seemed to be stringing me along and intentionally withholding the answers I sought.  The constant sense of repeated climax and of the book coming to an abrupt end over the final 200 pages was also frustrating.

I found myself both glad the story was over and disappointed I could not read on.  I will certainly look for more Fowles the next time I'm at the bookstore.

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